The Life of Joan of Arc
By Anatole France
APPENDIX 1

LETTER FROM DOCTOR G. DUMAS

MY DEAR MASTER,—You ask for my medical opinion in the case of Jeanne
d'Arc. Had I been able to examine it at my leisure with the Doctors
Tiphaine and Delachambre, who were summoned before the tribunal at
Rouen, I might have found it difficult to come to any definite
conclusion. And even more difficult do I find it now, when my
diagnosis must necessarily be retrospective and based upon
examinations conducted by persons who never dreamed of attempting to
discover the existence of any nervous disease. However since they
ascribed what we now call disease to the influence of the devil, their
questions are not without significance for us. Therefore with many
reservations I will endeavour to answer your question.

Of Jeanne's inherited constitution we know nothing; and of her
personal antecedents we are almost entirely ignorant. Our only
information concerning such matters comes from Jean d'Aulon, who, on
the evidence of several women, states[1152] that she was never fully
developed, a condition which frequently occurs in neurotic subjects.

We should, however, be unable to arrive at any conclusion concerning
Jeanne's nervous constitution had not her judges, and in particular
Maître Jean Beaupère, in the numerous examinations to which they
subjected her,[Pg ii.402] elicited certain significant details on the subject of
her hallucinations.

Maître Beaupère begins by inquiring very judiciously whether Jeanne
had fasted the day before she first heard her voices. Whence we infer
that the interdependence of inanition and hallucinations was
recognised by this illustrious professor of theology. Before
condemning Jeanne as a witch he wanted to make sure that she was not
merely suffering from weakness. Some time later we find Saint Theresa
suspecting that the visions said to have been seen by a certain nun
were merely the result of long fasting. Saint Theresa insisted on the
nun's partaking of food, and the visions ceased.

Jeanne replies that she had only fasted since the morning, and Maître
Beaupère proceeds to ask:

Q. "In what direction did you hear the voice?"

A. "I heard it on the right, towards the church."

Q. "Was the voice accompanied by any light?"

A. "I seldom heard it without there being a light. This light
appeared in the direction whence the voice came."[1153]

We might wonder whether by the expression "à droite" (a latere
dextro) Jeanne meant her own right side or the position of the church
in relation to her; and in the latter case, the information would have
no clinical significance; but the context leaves no doubt as to the
veritable meaning of her words.

"How can you," urges Jean Beaupère, "see this light which you say
appears to you, if it is on your right?"

If it had been merely a question of the situation of the church and
not of Jeanne's own right side, she would only have had to turn her
face to see the light in front of her, and Jean Beaupère's objection
would have been pointless.

Consequently at about the age of thirteen, at the period of puberty,
which for her never came, Jeanne would appear to have been subject on
her right side to unilateral[Pg ii.403] hallucinations of sight and hearing. Now
Charcot[1154] considered unilateral hallucinations of sight to be
common in cases of hysteria.[1155] He even thought that in hysterical
subjects they are allied to a hemianæsthesia situated on the same side
of the body, and which in Jeanne would be on the right side. Jeanne's
trial might have proved the existence of this hemianæsthesia, an
extremely significant symptom in the diagnosis of hysteria, if the
judges had applied torture or merely had examined the skin of the
subject in order to discover anæsthesia patches which were called
marks of the devil.[1156] But from the merely oral examination which
took place we can only draw inferences concerning Jeanne's general
physical condition. In case excessive importance should be attached to
such inferences I should add that in the diagnosis of hysteria
contemporary neurologists pay less attention than did Charcot to
unilateral hallucinations of sight.

The other characteristics of Jeanne's hallucinations revealed by her
examinations during the trial are no less interesting than these,
although they do not lead to any more certain conclusions.

Those visions and voices, which the subject refers to an external
source and which are so characteristic of hysterical hallucinations,
proceed suddenly from the subconscious self. Jeanne's conscious self
was so far from being prepared for her voices that she declares she
was very much afraid when she first heard them: "I was thirteen when I
heard a voice coming from God telling me to lead a good life. And the
first time I was very much afraid. This voice came to me about noon;
it was in the summer, in my father's garden."[1157]

And then straightway the voice becomes imperative.[Pg ii.404] It demands an
obedience which is not refused: "It said to me: 'Go forth into
France,' and I could no longer stay where I was."[1158]

Her visions all occur in the same manner. They appeal to the senses in
exactly the same way and are received by the Maid with equal
credulity.

Finally, these hallucinations of hearing and of sight are soon
associated with similar hallucinations of smell and touch, which serve
to confirm Jeanne's belief in their reality.

Q. "Which part of Saint Catherine did you touch?"

A. "You will hear nothing more."

Q. "Did you kiss or embrace Saint Catherine or Saint Margaret?"

A. "I embraced them both."

Q. "In embracing them did you feel heat or anything?"

A. "I could not embrace them without feeling and touching
them."[1159]

Because they thus appeal to the senses and seem to possess a certain
material reality, hysterical hallucinations make a profound and
ineffaceable impression on those who experience them. The subjects
speak of them as being actual and very striking facts. When they
become accusers, as so many women do who claim to have been the
victims of imaginary assaults, they support their assertions in the
most energetic fashion.

Not only does Jeanne see, hear, smell and touch her saints, she joins
the procession of angels they bring in their train. With them she
performs actual deeds, as if there were perfect unity between her life
and her hallucinations.

"I was in my lodging, in the house of a good woman, near the château
of Chinon, when the angel came. And then he and I went together to the
King."

Q. "Was this angel alone?"

A. "This angel was with a goodly company of other[Pg ii.405] angels.[1160]
They were with him, but not every one saw them.... Some were very much
alike; others were not, or at any rate not as I saw them. Some had
wings. Certain even wore crowns, and in their company were Saint
Catherine and Saint Margaret. With the angel aforesaid and with the
other angels they went right into the King's chamber."

Q. "Tell us how the angel left you."

A. "He left me in a little chapel, and at his departure I was very
sorrowful, and I even wept. Willingly would I have gone away with him;
I mean my soul would have gone."[1161]

In all these hallucinations there is the same objective clearness, the
same subjective certitude as in toxic hallucinations; and this
clearness, this certitude, may in Jeanne's case suggest hysteria.

But if in certain respects Jeanne resembles hysterical subjects, in
others she differs from them. She seems early to have acquired an
independence of her visions and an authority over them.

Without ever doubting their reality, she resists them and sometimes
disobeys them, when, for example, in defiance of Saint Catherine, she
leaps from her prison of Beaurevoir: "Well nigh every day Saint
Catherine told me not to leap and that God would come to my aid, and
also would succour those of Compiègne. And I said to Saint Catherine:
'Since God is to help those of Compiègne, I want to be with
them.'"[1162]

On another occasion she assumes such authority over her visions that
she can make the two saints come at her bidding when they do not come
of themselves.[Pg ii.406]

Q. "Do you call these saints, or do they come without being called?"

A. "They often come without being called, and sometimes when they
did not come I asked God to send them speedily."[1163]

All this is not in the accepted manner of the hysterical, who are
usually somewhat passive with regard to their nervous fits and
hallucinations. But Jeanne's dominance over her visions is a
characteristic I have noted in many of the higher mystics and in those
who have attained notoriety. This kind of subject, after having at
first passively submitted to his hysteria, afterwards uses it rather
than submits to it, and finally by means of it attains in his ecstasy
to that divine union after which he strives.

If Jeanne were hysterical, such a characteristic would help us to
determine the part played by the neurotic side of her nature in the
development of her character and in her life.

If there were any hysterical strain in her nature, then it was by
means of this hysterical strain that the most secret sentiments of her
heart took shape in the form of visions and celestial voices. Her
hysteria became the open door by which the divine—or what Jeanne
deemed the divine—entered into her life. It strengthened her faith
and consecrated her mission; but in her intellect and in her will
Jeanne remains healthy and normal. Nervous pathology can therefore
cast but a feeble light on Jeanne's nature. It can reveal only one
part of that spirit which your book resuscitates in its entirety. With
the expression of my respectful admiration, believe me, my dear
master,